


and i've lived longing for your every look since

by fiddleogold_againstyoursoul



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (but not really), Angst, Denial of Feelings, Established Relationship, M/M, Resolved Sexual Tension, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:00:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23787475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiddleogold_againstyoursoul/pseuds/fiddleogold_againstyoursoul
Summary: What Peter doesn't want, doesn't crave, and doesn't need.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas
Comments: 4
Kudos: 60





	and i've lived longing for your every look since

Peter doesn't want. At least, not usually.

If there really is a love language for every soul, even those long lost to the Forsaken, creature comforts never made it onto Peter's list. He doesn't want, he doesn't crave, he doesn't _need_. But the thing about stifling desire is that you can only clamp down on your own humanity so long before it rears back its ugly head and hisses at you in all its aching, bleeding agony. Peter is good at stitching these rips in the seams of his coat shut, winding columns of smoke so thick around his own throat the word _want_ never comes to pass his lips, even as the ghost of a breath. He doesn't want, he doesn't crave, he doesn't need. The god he serves is not the Vast, but it can sometimes feel just as all-encompassing, choking out capacity for all other emotional affiliation. At least, mostly. 

At least, when Elias Bouchard isn't around.

Here he is now, the little bastard, toned calf stretched to graze Peter's knee under the desk. It can't be a comfortable position to be in. Peter doesn't imagine Elias cares much. The Beholding doesn't seek comfort, it feeds on encroaching on that of others. Peter is a radiator of this discomfort, the proximity of their bodies now (heat, and with heat some unnameable desire) like a knife scraping against his sternum. Peter is an eat-all-you-can buffet and Elias still browsing the entrees. He opens his mouth to speak. The smoke tightens around his throat.

"You didn't answer your phone," says Elias meaningfully. His eyes flicker green, flicker silver. Peter wonders what colour they were before Jonah. Wonders if Jonah had green eyes himself, before the Beholding. "I missed you."

"I was busy."

"You were ignoring me."

"Yes, that does check out."

"You're cruel." Elias's dress shoe is leather, doubtlessly genuine in source and expensive in a brand Peter knows the man likely kept tabs on since its inception, hard and pointed. It digs into the meat of Peter's thigh. "I tease you once and you deprive me of your presence for two months. I've had to contend solely with faxes from Simon, and you _know_ how horrendously bored he can become of regular correspondence. If it weren't for propriety I daresay he would have shown up at the Institute months ago, carting along whatever new grandchild he's absorbed into the family. I'd half a mind to actually send him an invitation when word of the Tundra's return reached us."

"Reached _you."_

"Semantics," says Elias. "Am I the Beholding, the All-Seeing, Omnipotent Eye, or merely an extension of it? Are we one in the same, or master and servant, or does it all just bleed together inconceivably--am I truly me, myself, Elias, Jonah, the object of your affections? Is this really what you want to spend your precious few allotted hours in human company discussing, Peter?"

Peter snorts. "There isn't a quota. My patron doesn't have me on a leash."

"Oh, and neither does mine. Yet here we both are, serving them in our own stubborn ways." Elias's grin is beatific. Peter _wants_ \--Peter imagines it would be nice to see it curdle on that smug face. He listened to the voicemails; he always does. He paced the decks in the dark when the crew was asleep, listening to them. To Elias's voice. He didn't want to, he didn't need to. _Am I truly me, myself, Elias, Jonah, the object of your affections?_ A better servant of the Forsaken would have a sharper response to that. Peter doesn't. Peter doesn't know what to say to that at all. 

"Good to know you made friends with Simon while I was away."

"I made _do_ with Simon, Peter. I didn't exactly go around flashing my ankle at the Fairchilds. God knows I might have been reduced to that, given a few more weeks. I'm not ashamed of admitting it. I have always had an extraordinary appetite for affection, you know."

"That's a lot of words to say--"

"I missed you," says Elias. "Didn't I say that already?"

Peter breaks eye contact. Elias's gaze, in all its heat and intensity, doesn't leave his face. He feels that same scratching at his sternum again. The invisible hand on his throat applying a steady but increasingly more slippery pressure.

"Yes, I suppose you did," he says. "Tell me, what's happened while I've been away?"

"Oh, Peter. Dear Peter. Are you asking for a statement?" Elias's voice grows dark with delight, practically dripping, and Peter _wants_ \--he enjoys it when Elias is like this, when he allows that mask of calm composure to slip for just the fraction of a moment and the image Jonah Magnus has built for himself over the centuries flickers like a cheap hologram. "How could I refuse our most prized donor? Let's see. What do you want to Know?"

 _Nothing,_ Peter wants to say. He wants nothing, craves nothing, needs nothing. Except--

"My Archivist is growing stronger," says Elias, seeming content to carry conversation on his own. "I do wish he'd take better care of himself, but somehow he always happens to land on his feet. Or at least someplace soft on his stomach that won't kill him immediately till somebody--the detective, or Martin, mostly--can come and roll him back over. I must say, I really did have my reservations about him, but...despite his woeful lack of any qualifying factors, he's proven to be remarkably resourceful. Even if he has to shake that resource by the flaming hand before he can properly make use of it."

Peter smiles. He heard about Jude.

"Investigating the rituals, is he."

"Oh, yes. He's having to navigate through the labyrinthine structure Gertrude left behind, I certainly don't envy him the chore."

The name traces a shudder down Peter's spine he doesn't quite suppress quickly enough. Elias's mouth quirks at one end. "My dear Peter," he says, tone irritatingly familiar, "surely you're not _still_ scared of the bogeywoman. Gertrude Robinson may have been the biggest threat your patron ever faced, but her successor leaves much to be desired in terms of living up to that prowess. At least, as he is now. I have high hopes for Jon, but...hm. We'll just have to see, won't we."

"I'm not afraid of your Archivist."

"I know," replies Elias sagely.

Peter scowls, because Elias _does_ Know. Elias knows him. Knows what he likes and what he doesn't, what he looks like when he's afraid, happy, afraid of being happy. Knows how to press all his buttons and twiddle all his switches and sink that knife against his sternum into his stomach till it's nestled snugly between his ribs. In this office, this institute, this place of devotion to a god who could kill him with one look, Peter is paper-thin and there is nothing standing in between him and the full onslaught of the Beholding should Elias decide he doesn't need his _primary donor_ anymore after all. 

But it's never come up. At least, not explicitly. Peter keeps himself busy, makes himself useful, which in essence boils down to _rich and pliable to Elias's schemes_.

Peter hates how much he Knows. Hates how transparent he is in this office, this institute, this place of devotion to a god who could kill him with one look. _Will_ kill him, most probably. But that's a thought for another day, when Elias isn't looking at him with those dark, hungry eyes. Desire is a different colour on Elias Bouchard. It isn't the Beholding whose appetite he's seeking to sate. It's his own. Peter is an eat-all-you-can buffet and Elias slowly working his way up to the main course. _What will it be tonight, Mr. Bouchard?_ wonders Peter, not without a savage twist of his stomach. _How will you savour me?_

He looks back at last, holds the grey-green (chromium 3+, molten silver flowing over jade, shedded snakeskin) gaze in his for so long and so unbreakingly something in him seems to shatter. It must. _There must be repercussions for this desire,_ thinks Peter absent-mindedly, even as he is already moving to bridge the distance between them which is keeping him from satiating it. There must be his heart already weighed on the other end of the scale, even as his hands find the inside of Elias's thigh, his neck, that soft spot over his throat which moves when the man speaks and breathes and swallows. 

"I missed you," breathes Elias, his words in themselves a gulp which Peter presses his mouth to, drinks like water. Elias's hands are warm, warm, hard and bony and warm, long fingers sliding expertly through his collar to cup Peter's neck between them as though it is something precious. As though Peter is a lamb about to be lovingly sacrificed. And maybe he is, but at least in this moment he is supplicant of his own accord, the body pressed to his something he wants, craves, needs, has for so long. "Peter, dear Peter, I missed you. I missed you."

Peter can't speak; he doesn't know how to. There are so many things he has to say and none of them seem appropriate, words suddenly seem too much and yet not enough. Elias's eyes are bright and his teeth are sharp and when he bites Peter over the mouth it draws blood which seeps into his beard and pools salt under his tongue.

"I missed you," says the bastard.

"Did you, now," Peter says, smiling into the side of Elias's mouth and proceeding to work his way up that sharp, stubbled jaw with kisses slow enough to sting where the wispy remnants of Elias's beard scrapes. Elias makes a disgruntled noise, _impatient little man,_ and scrambles forward till his knee knocks into Peter's chest. Their bodies fall into each other some more, lock, interlace, rearrange. Elias's face is flooded with colour and Peter _wants--_ he wants, he wants, he wants. "I'll just have to make up for it, then." 

Elias takes him by the throat again, that comfortable worldly pressure threatening to push Peter out of his own skin. The Lonely struggling, squirming, seething in his blood. "You'd better," he says, and something in his voice raises all the hairs on Peter's arms. There is no part of his flesh which Elias cannot touch. There is no part of Peter that Elias does not Know intimately, the way nobody else knows. There is no part of his body unmapped, his soul unseen, his mind and memory left closed to the prying fingers of the Beholding's most dearly beloved. Elias doesn't ask for what he wants; he never needs to. Peter pours himself out, water over the Redeemer's feet entirely of his own volition, this appetite for self-destruction his own, knowing the ache of its aftermath will only make him Lonelier. _Here we both are, serving them in our own stubborn ways,_ said the Saviour or the one who killed her. The serpent twining its way around Peter's neck. Any true love necessitates a certain amount of give. Peter _wants_ \--Peter knows, he knows, he knows that he loves Elias. And he also knows this love will kill him.

Every moment spent in this office is a gamble. Kiss me, kill me, say you love me, push me against the wall and take my throat out with your teeth. Every minute action he takes--this methodical undressing, peeling layer after layer of Elias's impossible clothing, trailing kisses down his chest--is a high-risk, no-reward game of cards, and Peter isn't very confident in his hand. Elias's vest falls open at last and Peter swoops forward, kisses the top of his finely haired stomach. Stutter of breath, flash of green; Peter's mouth curls into a smirk as he sinks down and begins to work open Elias's dress slacks, licking at what skin is within reach: hip, belly and the swirl of black trailing downwards to where the slacks are coming loose. Elias's breath hitches again as Peter bites the inside of his thigh, almost tenderly, and sucks at the angry red mark left behind, tongue tracing the imprints of his teeth. This is what desire is, he knows. The sublimation of an otherwise otherworldly anger. 

"Peter," says Elias. A dangerous edge has crept into his tone--dangerous for them both, Peter thinks wryly, though he's not sure if even Elias understands this. 

Obligingly, Peter tilts his head back and takes Elias into his throat.

If Elias wanted, he could keep Peter like this for the rest of their time together. On his knees, working his jaw patiently, painstakingly, breath strangled and short as Elias's hips jerk. And not just in this moment but every moment from now; he could peel Peter apart with an image alone, projected into his head, a choice word, a look, a smirk and Peter would come undone. He knows this, they both know this. Peter has worshipped one god his whole life, but Elias is something else. Elias is an altar built by his own hands. A fortress where every brick was chosen from before the foundation was laid, a direction and a force of motion. Elias grabs him by the hair--and it is almost as though he is struck by lightning, the way his entire body convulses--and Peter chokes, groans, comes closer to the edge. He is dizzy with _want_ and Elias seems to look right through him. Warmth floods his throat; he swallows. Elias looks for a moment embarrassed. The moment doesn't last.

The rest of their clothes come off with little hassle or formality. If Elias's hands were warm before, they are blazing now, to the point where Peter isn't sure whether this man with the clever mouth and cleverer eyes serves the Eye or the Desolation. To bare skin they are almost too hot to the touch. Peter shivers, bites down on whimpers, lets Elias kiss him, push him down into the chair and straddle his lap. There is a manic in those dark eyes, glowing green, which should terrify him. They do, but for different reasons than his own safety. "Elias," he says. Elias's head dips forward. The kiss is deeper than before, and this time Elias is trembling. A myriad of emotions thread through Peter, but he can't say which one is at the forefront. "Jonah," he says instead. Elias breaks away to look at him, but the look isn't reprimanding. It's thoughtful. 

"I love you," says Peter.

Elias stares at him. Then he smiles and sinks down on Peter's cock, smile never breaking even as his breaths become unsteady, and even when he is fully seated the smile doesn't disappear, he only presses it to Peter's mouth and says, "Move," the words curling cruelly at the edges. 

Peter moves. They both move, their bodies fitting together like mechanisms in clockwork, turning some horrible wheel Peter knows Elias has designs for which go beyond this room, beyond this tryst, beyond him. Elias gasps with each heavy thrust, turns his cheek to rest against Peter's forehead, great green eyes scrunching shut in some contorted expression of ecstasy. He feels so small in Peter's hands, so small and yet so impossibly nebulous, not a man but merely the idea of one passed down from one body to another across the centuries. Peter wants--Peter wants to love him, so he does. Peter loves him. Peter licks the clavicle exposed to him when Elias throws his head back, kissing and biting fondly. Peter cries when he comes; there is no shame in it. Peter picks them both up after, disappears them to a bedroom in an apartment few have ever seen, where there are two sets of bathrobes hanging by the sink and shelves stocked high with food Elias hardly knows how to cook. Peter puts Elias to bed. Peter turns away. 

He hesitates.

"Don't you dare, Peter Lukas," says Elias sleepily, draping himself over the side of the bed like a long, evil duvet. "Come here. And quickly, it's cold."

Any true love necessitates a certain amount of longing. Peter permits himself, this once, to long for that which he can never have in its entirety. 

He sleeps there by Elias's side, through the night. By morning he is gone. It will never be any different.

**Author's Note:**

> title from a poem by Li-Young Lee, "I Loved You Before I Was Born" which is Extremely in line with peterelias and also i'm gay & chinese (pick a struggle right) so i'm allowed to put LYL in everything i write.


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